The volume by neuroscientist Michela Matteoli is out on Friday 23 September for Sonzogno. It is part of the Science for Life series, conceived and directed by Eliana Liotta
The prodigy this: 200 billion cells (of which half neurons) crammed into 2% of our body weight. Inside the skull, each neuron on average communicates with a thousand others, which in total makes about 100,000 billion contactsa literally astronomical number, such as to challenge and contain the sky, as Emily Dickinson wrote.
If half are neurons, the rest is the other side of the brain, long unrecognized: the cells of the glia, which are not an inert glue as previously thought, but contain among other things myelin, a very precious sheath on the axons that accelerates the transmission of information, e the astrocytes which have the task of instructing the neurons and regulate its activity. And then, scattered everywhere in the system, circulate the microglial cells, the sweepers of the brain that generate the inflammatory reaction in the event of an external threat, together with those of the immune system itself, which penetrate the brain by crossing the blood-brain barrier.
In fact, there is no total separation, but dialogue, between the central nervous system and the immune system, and here the specific competence of the author of an excellent popularization book enters the scene. Among the leading international experts in synapse diseases and neuroinflammation, Michela Matteoli directs the CNR Institute of Neuroscience and the neuroscience program of the Humanitas Clinical Institute, where he teaches Pharmacology. In his new book, The talent of the brain. 10 Easy Neuroscience Lessons — which is part of the Sonzogno Science for Life series, conceived and directed by Eliana Liotta (the volume comes out on Friday 23 September) – introduces us to the most advanced knowledge on the prince of organs, that magnificent Giano Bifronte between biochemistry and ideas, logic and emotions , individual and society, which we bring to our head by using it in the most contradictory ways.
Its strength, explains the scientist recently elected correspondent member of the Accademia dei Lincei, lies in the first place in being in constant dialogue with the rest of the body (especially with its intestinal alter ego, which contains 80 percent of the immune cells) and with the natural and social environment, and secondly in its plasticity, which allows it to self-repair, expand, keep fit. On the contrary, its enemy one above all: chronic inflammation, that is the state of constant activation and hyperactivation of the immune reaction which according to the most recent studies has a crucial role in degenerative diseases of the nervous system, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, in ALS. , but also in anxiety and depression.
To combat inflammation in aging and the resulting cognitive decline, Michela Matteoli with others is continuing the Train the Brain projectfounded by the great neuroscientist Lamberto Maffei, with the idea of leveraging the unexpected resources of brain plasticity.
The book summarizes six tips that each of us can follow: keep your mind trained (that is, never stop learning, because this increases synapses and their effectiveness; and the more emotionally we are affected by a teaching, the more we will remember it, how much it loved. repeat Piero Angela); make movement; have proper nutrition (the Mediterranean diet among the best in the world to prevent neuroinflammation); having a rich social life (loneliness is a risk factor even comparable to smoking, writes Matteoli); treat yourself to breaks that break chronic stress; sleep well (seven to eight hours a night, while a quarter of Italians suffer from insomnia).
In closing, Matteoli adds a clear chapter on gender medicine and on physiological differences between men’s and women’s brainsto be understood as a chapter of a more general personalized biology, that is, of the fact that each of us has a unique brain, the result of a combination of genetics, individual development, lived experiences, socio-economic context and life contingencies.
By fighting neuroinflammation, scientists are developing experimental therapies to cure or at least slow the progression of degenerative diseases of the nervous system, whose incidence is unfortunately on the rise. Matteoli uses the right words, explaining how promising these new studies are but at the same time avoiding to generate illusory hopes, as these diseases are an intertwining of genes, environment and aging pathways. In these cases, the search times, unfortunately, are not as fast as we would like. There is only one way to accelerate them: to give oxygen and freedom to the curious brains of female scientists.
The author
The book by Michela Matteoli comes out of Sonzogno on Friday 23 September The talent of the brain. 10 Easy Neuroscience Lessons. The volume (pp. 160, euro 16) is part of the Sonzogno Science for Life series, conceived and directed by Eliana Liotta Michela Matteoli, director of the CNR Institute of Neuroscience and coordinates the Neuro Center of the Humanitas University Hospital in Milan, where also full professor of Pharmacology. It is part of the Accademia dei Lincei
September 20, 2022 (change September 20, 2022 | 20:53)
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